When I taught in public education, my contract was about three pages long. Most of it was obvious stuff about child abuse and so on. If I "worked to rule," I wouldn't have to attend after-school functions, go on field trips, chaperone anything, and work from 8-3, essentially. Most weeks, I ended up working from around 7 to 4 or 5 in the evening, and, at least once a month, I had to return for an after-school event that often lasted until 8 or 9 o'clock, with a return to work early the next morning. Of course, during the "summers off," I was expected to attend meetings, have inservice days, and so on.

So, yes, teachers doing the "work to rule" thing would really expose just how underpaid and underappreciated teachers are.

Gove is a farking idiot. He's a fundie who sent a bible "from the secretary of state for education" to every school in England and Wales. After people complained, he had to get donors to pay the government back. His plans are universally Ill considered.

What gets me is that he's up in arms about teachers doing what they're paid to do. They're not striking, they're just not taking it in the arse to paper over the gaps that the government have left in the education system.

Before the USians get started, Thatcher broke the unions, we have about four teachers unions, if you include Scottish ones and there's no such thing as a closed shop in the UK.

hasty ambush:special20: Sure, you support the dismantling of organized labor, you deserve the slavery you will receive.

I support the dismantling of government employee organized labor. Who are they organizing against? Not some evil corporation but the tax payers.

Unions still serve a purpose in some private sector industries like coal mining.

Bullshiat. People are working jobs, its their right to band together to ensure that they are treated fairly. Who pays them is immaterial. Do you demand that companies sell their goods to public bodies at cost? Of course not, so why should teachers sell their labour for less than it's worth?

I often wonder about those that elect such obvious assholes to supposedly represent them in their government.

Once they win their seat the "leader" appoints them cabinet ministers with their own little agenda and they proceed to wreak havoc. We have has a series of "education ministers" in Ontario who were absolute dicks or biatches once they got into power (one was even a HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT!) totally ruining the relationship between the teachers and the government to this day.

How do these voters feel about themselves for putting the little 'x' beside the name of a total asshole?

DuncanMhor:Gove is a farking idiot. He's a fundie who sent a bible "from the secretary of state for education" to every school in England and Wales. After people complained, he had to get donors to pay the government back. His plans are universally Ill considered.

Why is it that Christian Conservatives, in general, always try to convert people to their beliefs using government means? No matter what the country is, could be the US, England, or at the most extreme Uganda; Christians Conservatives never seem to have a problem with government as long as they can use it to impose their belief structures. Yet turn around the other cheek, with a country that supports freedom of all beliefs and non-belief, is suddenly an "affront to Christianity" and must stop "persecuting Christians." These fundamentalist Christians are afraid of freedom in the purest sense of the word, but not their idea of freedom* (the asterisk meaning a government that doesn't force all people to either adopt, or at the least abide by, fundamentalist Christian rules).